for seven years. Finally an act of amnesty enabled him to send for his wife and children. In 1732 they came over under the escort of John Brown, brother of Mrs. Stuart, and joined Archibald Stuart in his new home. They remained in Pennsylvania about seven years, and during that time two other children were born, Alexander and Benjamin. After the proclamation of the Governor of Virginia in 1738, granting freedom of religious opinion and worship to immigrants who would move to the Valley of Virginia and protect its western frontiers against the incursions of the Indians, Archibald Stuart with his family came to Virginia, accompanied or followed by John Brown, and settled in Augusta County.

The three sons of Archibald Stuart married in early life daughters of leading settlers of the Valley. Thomas was a prominent man in Augusta County, and is the person of that name referred to by Hugh Blair Grigsby in his address on "The Founders of Washington College." Benjamin, the youngest son, is represented to have been a man of admirable character and fine intellect. He inherited the family mansion of his father and lived a quiet life, not taking any active part in public affairs. He married and left a number of children.

Archibald Stuart's daughter, Eleanor, married Edward Hall and left a large family. Among her descendants were Dr. Isaac Hall, who graduated at the University of Edinburgh in the latter part of the eighteenth century, settled in Petersburg, Virginia, and became an eminent physician. His son, John Hall, moved to North Carolina and was judge of the Supreme Court of that State. One of Eleanor Stuart's daughters married Andrew Fulton, an officer in the Revolutionary War, and among the offspring of this marriage were John H. Fulton, of Abingdon, who was for several years a member of Congress, and Andrew Fulton, judge of the Wythe District.

Alexander Stuart, Sr., was the second son of Archibald Stuart, Sr., the fugitive from Ireland. He was born in Pennsylvania and was brought by his parents at the age of

four to Augusta County, where he was reared to manhood. He received a common school education, and was versed in the simple branches of mathematics. At the age of twenty he married Mary Patterson, by whom he had two sons, Archibald and Robert, and several daughters. For some time after his marriage he lived in Augusta County about three miles northwest of Waynesboro. Subsequently he moved to a farm, which his father had given him lying in what is now Rockbridge County, near Brownsburg. Having lost his wife, he married the second time Mrs. Paxton, a widow, whose maiden name was Moore. By her he had two sons, Alexander and James, and a number of daughters. Alexander Stuart, Sr., is the person referred to by Grigsby as one of the Founders of Liberty Hall Academy. He was deeply impressed with the importance of education, and took an active part in having the academy removed from its original location in Augusta County to a point near Timber Ridge Church. To accomplish this, he and his neighbor, Samuel Houston, the father of President Samuel Houston of Texas, offered the trustees a donation of forty acres of land and liberal subscriptions in money. The offer was accepted, and the four sons of Alexander Stuart were educated at the academy.

The struggle for the independence of the colonies was then progressing, and when the seat of war was transferred to the South by the invasion of Cornwallis, the militia troops of the Valley and southwestern Virginia were called into active service and ordered to proceed southward to join the army of General Green. Among these was the regiment of which Samuel McDowell was Colonel, consisting mainly of troops from Augusta and Rockbridge. Colonel McDowell was a brave and experienced officer, but some time before the battle of Guilford Court House he had an attack of malarial fever which unfitted him for active service in the field, and the command of the regiment devolved upon Major Alexander Stuart, who was the senior officer in the absence of Colonel McDowell. This regiment was composed mainly of the young men of the Valley, who

fought with the enthusiasm of patriots and the steadiness of veterans. They were stationed at a point particularly exposed to the fire of the British artillery, and suffered greatly in the battle.

Major Alexander Stuart, according to every account, conducted himself with great gallantry, and two horses were killed under him during the battle. The first horse was killed in an early stage of the conflict, but Major Stuart promptly mounted another and resumed his command. At a late period of the fight, when the British artillery was brought to bear upon the American troops, a shell exploded so near Major Stuart that the fragments killed his horse. and inflicted a severe wound upon himself. Being disabled and his horse having fallen upon him, he was compelled to lie helpless upon the field until he was captured and sent as a prisoner to the British hospital, where his wounds were properly attended.

It is told that when Major Stuart was taken before the enemy and questioned about the battle, Cornwallis inquired, "Who was the damn rascal who commanded the troops near the apple tree?"

"I had that honor," Major Stuart replied.

"Well," retorted Cornwallis, "that regiment did me more damage than any in the fight!"

Whereupon Major Stuart, with a low bow, replied, "Your Lordship is pleased to be complimentary."

The sword which he wore at the battle of Guilford was of domestic manufacture, roughly forged on his own place, and was afterward presented to the Virginia Historical Society.

When Major Stuart was well enough to be moved, he was transferred, with other prisoners, to one of the ships on the coast, where he was detained for more than six months, before he regained his liberty by an exchange of prisoners.

Archibald Stuart, the father of Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, was the oldest son of Major Alexander Stuart and his wife, Mary Patterson. He was born at the homestead about nine miles southeast of Staunton, March 19th, 1757.

His boyhood was spent in Augusta County, but his father having removed to the neighborhood of Brownsburg, in Rockbridge, he became a resident of that county, and was a pupil in Liberty Hall Academy. While a student there he exhibited a strong thirst for knowledge and an unusual capacity to acquire it; and as he had decided to adopt the law as his profession, his father determined to send him to William and Mary College.

In the fall of 1777 or 1779, he entered William and Mary College, and during a large portion of his residence there he lived with the family of Bishop Madison, president of the college. He thus had the opportunity of meeting the best society in the city and of becoming acquainted with many of the men who were prominent in the councils of the State, Williamsburg being then the seat of the Government. The college itself then contained a large number of youths who were destined to act a conspicuous part in public affairs.

"It is creditable," says Grigsby, "to the standing of Stuart that among such students he was conspicuous. His personal appearance and address, as well as that accurate scholarship which was characteristic of the pupils of Graham, contributed to his popularity. His erect, sinewy form (which exceeded six feet in height), his placid face and expressive black eyes, his long black hair falling about his neck, the blended austerity and gentleness of his deportment, presented to his young associates one of the finest models of the Western Virginian. There had been lately instituted in William and Mary a literary association *** which was then in its early prime-the Society of the Phi Beta Kappa-of this association Stuart was elected President."

On his return to college in 1780, Stuart found the eastern part of the State infested by the British. The exercises of the college were soon suspended and affairs were in an almost desperate condition. Stuart at once hastened to the scene of active war, joined the army as

1Vice-President.

a private soldier in the regiment from Rockbridge, of which his father was the major, and was promoted to an office in the commissariat department. But when the advance of Cornwallis rendered an engagement certain, he took his station in the ranks and fought gallantly at Guilford. It was in this battle that he saw his father instantly stripped of his clothing by the Tories, after he fell wounded while commanding the regiment, and conveyed a prisoner within the enemy's lines.

During the remainder of the war Stuart had in his possession the official seal of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, of which he was the Vice-President, and, as the society became extinct, he retained the seal until his death. Many years after his death the seal was found in a secret drawer of his escritoire, where it had remained more than half a century, and was transmitted by his son to the society which had been revived at William and Mary.

On the return of Stuart from the war he studied law with Mr. Jefferson, and ever cherished for his preceptor the highest admiration and esteem. Some of his law books he procured from Mr. Jefferson. What Wythe had been to Jefferson, Jefferson became to young Stuart, adviser, friend and revered associate through life. Their intimacy lasted during the life of Jefferson. When Stuart was elected judge, his district included the county of Albemarle, and, in attending the sessions of his court, he regularly spent a night with Jefferson at Monticello. As a politician Stuart sustained Jefferson's administration, and was a Republican elector until the series of Virginia Presidents who had borne a part in the Revolution was ended. In the Stuart papers. there is in the handwriting of Mr. Jefferson a form of a Constitution for Virginia, drawn in 1791.2

"Archibald Stuart," says Mr. Stuart, speaking of this period of his father's life, "spent the greater part of the next two years in the study of the law with Mr. Jefferson. After he had completed his course of reading, he returned.

2Virginia Historical Collections, Vol. X, page 10.

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